The Calm After the Storm

After a crazy end of the fall semester and an even busier February, I think I'm in a little bit of a lull right now. My classes are going well and pretty much on auto-pilot until finals. I'm working on a couple of writing projects that are close to finished. I'm sure I'll be busy again toward the end of April finishing things up, but it's nice to not feel overwhelmed right now.

I have two papers that are close to being ready to submit to journals. I think. Both of them have been rejected from a conference, one from ICA and one from NCA. The ICA-reject was only partly done at the ICA deadline, so I can kind of understand that one (although I thought it was still good enough to be accepted). The NCA one was almost finished, so I'm a bit confused as to why it didn't get accepted. I'm hoping they will release the reviews soon so I can get any feedback that's useful before sending it to a journal.

Not a lot to say today

Not a lot to say today. I'm plugging away on a couple of papers that I'd like to submit late this month or early next month, before the end of semester blitz. It was a relaxing weekend, and I'm ready to hit it this week.

Blogging Woes

I was just on my other blog (the one that gets 10 times more traffic than this one). I've been using Firefox since I was hit with virus a couple of months ago. Many of my posts have formatting issues or html leaking through. The other blog is done on WordPress (grrrr), so apparently Word Press has trouble with Firefox. Not a good start to the day.

Student Research Banquet

Last night, my university had its annual student research banquet, where undergraduates who did research with faculty over the summer present what they did. It's a scary time for me, a control freak, as I watch students give their own perspective on what they did with me. Both during and after the presentation, I found myself wanting to jump in and clarify. During Q & A after, I sat on my hands as audience members asked questions which, to me, had easy answers. Don't get me wrong. The students did a fine job overall. It's just hard to give up that control. Having read Freire, I understand why problem-posing education is so much more challenging for teachers. I've got to get better at it.

Fall registration was this week. One of my classes is an elective, not required by any degree plan. I was a little nervous about whether this class would get the required number of enrolled students, but it easily passed that number. Big relief--it's a class I'm really excited about teaching, in spite of the fact that it's a new prep.

Paulo Freire and my teaching

I recently read Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and it really made me think about how I teach. Freire argues that there are two classes of people, oppressors and oppressed. Because the Oppressors are typically the ones in charge of education, teaching tends to keep the Oppressed in a subordinate state. Some benevolent Oppressors may try to educate Oppressed in such as way as to liberate them, but those efforts are doomed to fail because the Oppressors only know what Freire calls "banking education." In this system, teachers make deposits into students and expect the ability to make withdrawals at exam time. Freire contrasts this with what he labels "problem-posing education" where teacher-students pose a problem to student-teachers (recognizing the co-existence of knowing and learning in everyone), and then the student-teachers use the knowledge that they already have to develop solutions to the problem.

So as I teach students the importance of dissent, am I depositing a value in them, expecting them to be able to do it? Or am I posing a problem (oppressive silence in organizations) and letting them work through the solution? As I think about the Fall semester and my teaching then, it's definitely something upon which I will reflect.

By the way, if you are familiar with Freire's work, I apologize for the oversimplification of his ideas. Although not an easy read, I highly recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed to anyone teaching.

Students are registering for classes this week, beginning today. Normally, I'm always curious who will take my courses. But this fall, I'm scheduled to teach an elective, so I'm particularly watching to see if the class makes. I've advertised as needed, but I haven't heard from people. This year, I only taught seniors, so they are little help. I need 8 students. Come on. Don't make me get re-assigned to left over classes!

Back at it again

I'm finishing Defensive Driving to take care of a ticket. I've done the comedy courses before, but this is an online course that isn't a comedy. This is much more of a deterrent to speeding--I never want to take this class again.

It's nice to be back with students. Spring Break was a much needed break. February was so intense. I was busy last week, but it was mostly stuff around the house and hobbies. It was nice to not have to push so hard on school stuff.

However, I did get some stuff done. I resubmitted an article that had a revise and resubmit, I got caught up on grading, and I submitted an article for initial review. Not bad for a week off.

Spring Break!

I'm taking Spring Break off from blogging. Be back on Monday.